


Reviving a Dead World

by lopsidedhead



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Refunct AU, bold of you to assume any of this is beta read - Freeform, heehoo references to the jungle go brrr - Freeform, why aren't there character tags for ren and stress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29143248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lopsidedhead/pseuds/lopsidedhead
Summary: One day, a small group of Hermits don't wake up on a bed under the sunrise or in the safety of their bases. Instead, they wake up under a burning sun in an unfamiliar world.-----Alternatively: Hermitcraft Refunct AU.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if I'm going to complete this, so please bear with me here. This is based heavily around the game Refunct, and although you don't need to know the game to read this fic I'd still recommend playing it (it's like $3 when it's off sale!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It begins.

< **BdoubleO100 went to sleep. Sweet dreams!** >

< **Etho has left the game** >

< **impulseSV has left the game** >

< **FalseSymmetry has left the game** >

< **Xisuma has left the game** >

< **BdoubleO100 has left the game** >

< **Stressmonster101 has left the game** >

< **Grian has left the game** >

< **cubfan135 has left the game** >

< **Rendog has left the game** >

< **Tango has left the game** >

< **Zedaph** > ...huh?


	2. Vexing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cub wakes up. (And does a whole lot more, actually.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains descriptions of breathing underwater, although not drowning.

The first thing that worried Cub was the hard surface underneath his back.

Sure, he'd fallen asleep at projects before. It wasn't uncommon for another hermit to find the bearded scientist lying on a haphazard assortment of items, having passed out while building some crazy redstone contraption or whatever massive build he was working on. But this was… different. The air was more still, yet fresher, than in his pyramid, and he was very sure he'd fallen asleep in his own bed.

The second thing that worried Cub was the silence.

Although the Vex had lessened their grip on their mages in their latest world, they hadn't given up altogether, and by now Cub had learnt to just filter the constant malevolent whispering out of his hearing. It was a little overwhelming around light blue glazed terracotta, and some days he struggled to even step foot in the town hall, but he dealt with it. Now the lack of Vex whispers was all too obvious, drawing attention to itself with its own absence.

Cub slowly and carefully opened his eyes, half expecting to see the familiar sandstone ceiling of his pyramid. Instead, he was blinded by a sun much brighter than he was used to, even in the desert. The pharaoh jumped to his feet, a wave of panic washing over him, and took a long look at his surroundings.

Instantly, something was wrong. This was not the typical blocky world Cub was used to, or at the very least not the Hermitcraft world. He was surrounded by still, clear water, monolithic pillars poking from the ocean in the far distance. Under the never-ending ocean there were large blocky shapes, although he could also see a few strangely cylindrical _things_ that almost looked like pipes. Everything there was a dull grey, tinted dark turquoise by the water. When he turned, he was faced with a shorter pillar directly in front of him. It was a light grey, made of a material that seemed to be concrete, and a strange red beam emanated from the top of it. A few more platforms were visible to the sides of it.

That was when he felt the texture of the ground under his feet change. (He noted somewhere in the back of his mind that he'd been wearing sandals when he'd fallen asleep. Where'd they go?). Looking down, there was now grass poking out from underneath his feet, and emanating from where they touched the ground there was a slowly expanding circle of neon green plants that took over the grey.

Carefully, Cub stepped onto the only platform he could reach. He couldn’t see any other Hermits nor anywhere they could be (other than maybe those giant pillars in the distance? Unlikely), so the best course of action would just be to investigate everything - first target: that red beam. There were more platforms wrapping around the back of the tall one, and every time he stepped on a platform the green grass and plant life spread from where his feet landed. He was almost reminded of how Stress would bring flowers to everywhere she walked, and he wondered if she was currently in a similar world. (He resolved not to let his mind wander too much, though. After all, this was still an unknown situation with unknown risks. Like, what would happen if he died here, maybe of fall damage? He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.)

Finally, Cub heaved himself onto the highest platform and examined the source of the red beam. It was a red button with a grey rim, unaffected by the creeping plant life around it - in fact, none of the plants even touched the button. Curious and out of options, the bearded man stepped cautiously onto the button, and immediately more land rose up out of the water, another button with a red beam coming with it.

This was going to take a while.

\-----

Cub realised quickly that this was definitely some sort of parkour world. It had taken some careful jumps and some crawling into tight spaces, as well as figuring out a lot of things he’d never seen before like elevators (and as it turned out, the long cylindrical things _were_ pipes!). There’d been a couple of close shaves with almost falling a distance that would surely be lethal, but every time he’d managed to fall into water instead. Now, he was faced with two platforms, one button at each end, and two pipes leading directly into the water. He couldn’t just jump over, not with his level of athleticism, so he would have to go underwater for the first time since he’d arrived. Steeling himself, he crouched down and let the pipe drop him into the water…

...and he breathed.

Or at least, he thought he was breathing. That was surely the only way he could be underwater without feeling the burning sensation of holding his breath… right?

Under the water, everything was misty blue. In front of him he could see the bottom of the pipe that would get him onto the platform he needed to reach, and all around were more grey concrete platforms, elevators, and another pipe or two. He continued on, passing off the water breathing (???) as just a weird conduit effect or something.

\-----

Only two buttons later, Cub was mildly stuck.

He’d jumped down into a pit that contained a button, stumbling a little as he landed, without thinking about how he was going to get out. He didn’t seem to have any sort of building material on him - no blocks, no ladders, no stairs, nothing - and he couldn’t even reach the lowest ledge to be able to grab it. In a word, he was trapped.

So Cub did the only logical thing someone who’s been thrown into an unfamiliar situation and has now gotten trapped will do: he kicked the wall. What he wasn’t expecting from this impulsive outburst of frustration, though, was to _jump off the wall._

Staring at the wall in surprise, he tried it again. Almost predictably, he ended up catapulting backwards. It was strange, almost as if he’d instinctively… walljumped!

Grinning, Cub jumped and threw himself at the sides of the pit. His instincts kicked in, and with a couple of tries at walljumping out of the pit, he was free.

Strange. He definitely hadn’t ever done that in Hermitcraft. But he shrugged it off and continued to the next button. Maybe that would be the one to get him out of this world.

\-----

Cub was getting tired of running around pressing buttons. It was starting to feel hopeless, just staving off the inevitable. At one point he had to go underwater again, this time to reach a button that was only accessible from below, and again he was reminded that he seemed to breathe underwater. It was a strange feeling, definitely nothing like the salty water breathing potions back in Hermitcraft, and he didn’t like it one bit. As he zoned out, thinking about his friends back in the server, he wondered if they’d noticed he was gone. Or maybe they were all in similar situations, transported to unfamiliar worlds where physics behaved differently and an ocean stretched out endlessly around them. Either way, he didn’t like to think about it much, but it was something to distract him from the burning sun and monotonous button-pressing.

And then he fell.

He hadn’t quite been paying attention when looking for water to land in after a particularly tall pillar, and he’d just fallen off. Desperately his eyes flicked between different patches of water, hoping to change his course, but to no avail. He was going to die of fall damage, maybe this was a hardcore world, maybe he’d respawn back at the start, maybe this would send him back to Hermitcraft-

Cub landed on a grey, concrete platform, and he felt no different.

No respawn, not even any damage that he could find. He just… stood up. So fall damage wasn’t an option, he noted. No fall damage, no drowning damage. Great.

In all honesty, he wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed.

\-----

Cub took less care from then on. He settled into the pattern of jumping, walljumping, and occasionally sliding or pulling himself up a ledge. At one point there was a special sort of pad on the floor which launched him upwards when he jumped on it (he wondered if it was made of slime), and that showed up a few more times after that, but it was just… all the same.

Finally, something changed.

The ocean was filled with platforms at this point, many of which were overgrown with plants and grass, although empty water still stretched out for miles around the small island. But after what seemed like hours, Cub noticed that the next button’s beam was _yellow._ He stopped in his tracks to gaze at the yellow beam for a few seconds, pondering on what changed, before kicking into high gear one more time. There were two pillars next to each other he could use as leverage to walljump into a higher position, and from there he could jump onto another pillar, and then finally directly onto the button that emitted the yellow beam. Within a minute he was on that final pillar, staring at the yellow button in front of him.

Without further ado, Cub jumped and pressed the button.

Immediately he was shot upwards, higher than he even thought possible in this strange world, and as he peered at the island below he noticed it was in the shape of a heart, veins of green running through it. Something strangely similar, yet absolutely different, to the Vex he was so used to whispered two words directly into his mind, words that he would keep with him for years to come:

“Thank you.”

\-----

< **cubfan135 has joined the world** >

Cub woke up gasping under a blue sky, white fluffy clouds obscuring the sun. The sand beneath him was soft, and familiar, and comforting.

At long last, he was back in Hermitcraft.


	3. Natural

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Etho is pretty good at parkour, right?

Etho wasn't quite sure how he had ended up here. Wherever "here" was.

One moment he'd laid down in his base to just rest his eyes, the next he was sitting on this weird platform in the middle of the ocean. And it had _definitely_ been night-time when he'd laid down, not the middle of the day. Etho knew he was good at ninja moves, but even this was beyond his capabilities.

The ground beneath Etho's legs was hard and warm in the sun, although not as hot as he would've expected from concrete (or at least he thought it was concrete, just from the texture). Behind his back was more of the concrete-like material, colder than the floor due to the angle of the sun. He supposed that if he stayed here for long enough then he'd be in shadow too, since the sun seemed to be travelling backwards relative to the direction he was facing. Hard to tell, though. This sun was so much brighter than he was used to.

Meanwhile, in front of him stretched a neverending ocean. (Or at least he assumed it was neverending. That was the nature of these sorta things, after all). Tall skinny pillars stuck up out of the water like ice spikes, and he distantly wondered if he'd be able to climb them. Probably not.

Etho tucked his knees to his chest, just to ground himself as he took in all the information he could about this new world, and as he did he felt the texture of the ground underneath him change in a wave, starting from where his feet touched it. (He'd taken his shoes off before resting, of course. Canadian custom!) It became softer and cooler… and more green? Grass! It was grass and other assorted plants, spreading over the platform at an alarming speed. (He tried not to think about the jungle.)

Jumping to his feet, Etho let his eyes take in everything that had been behind him, including what seemed to be a red beam emitted from the top of the tallest accessible pillar. There was a platform within reach that looked like it wrapped around the back of this pillar. He tentatively stepped onto it, internally cringing at how the plant life spread from his feet. (He tried not to think about vines taking over skin.)

Physically shaking the distressing thoughts from his head, Etho pulled himself up onto the platform that hosted the red beam, his hands gripping the concrete firmly. The beam seemed to come from the centre of a large red button, big enough to stand on. So he stood on it, of course (who wouldn't press a big inviting red button, after all?), only to watch more platforms break the surface of the water a few meters away.

Shrugging, Etho jumped to the next platform, figuring he'd find a way home somehow.

\-----

It didn't take long for Etho to find out that physics in this world was very different from the world he was used to.

It had taken a few falls to realise it, but it seemed like falling from great heights wasn't actually hurting him. He'd fallen the equivalent of about seven or eight blocks at one point, but he hadn't even pulled a muscle. So that was one thing.

Secondly, he seemed to float. (On water, anyway). Back home he'd have to constantly swim or tread water to stay afloat in an ocean like this, much like every other Hermit. (None of them used Frost Walker boots, since they could mess with water streams. No one wants to break their storage system, after all). Yet somehow, even after falling into the water, he would end up floating on the surface effortlessly. It was uncanny, and he felt like he preferred the feeling of the grass under his feet. (He was getting better at not thinking about the jungle.)

So, Etho concluded that this must be a completely different type of world to Hermitcraft, or even to Terra Firma. Maybe a special parkour challenge map? But that didn't make sense, he hadn't been invited to one of those recently. If it was a challenge map, he was killing it. There hadn't been a single section he'd struggled with, although by now the sun was inching towards the horizon. It just seemed to come naturally to him, somehow.

As he leapt from one of the tallest platforms so far straight onto another button (he still half expected to take damage from it, so he flinched as he landed), Etho spied the next button directly in front of him. It was on a platform too high and far to jump to normally, separated from his current platform by a stretch of water. Pipes lead into the water on either side. There was no way he'd be able to reach the other platform without ending up in the water, unless…

Etho backed up a few paces until his feet were right against the edge of the platform, jumped a couple of times to prepare, and then ran full-speed at the pipe he could reach. He leapt on top of the pipe while keeping his momentum, and then at the very last moment before his feet lost their purchase on the slippery material he jumped, flying through the air and landing on the very rim of the pipe on the other side, almost slipping off as he landed. Grinning, he heaved himself up onto the platform and pushed the button, although the smile dropped a bit when he saw the next platforms rise up out of the ocean.

Just like he'd thought, though: he was a natural.

\-----

As Etho approached another button not long after - one that was in a deep pit, for some reason - he spotted something strange hovering just behind the familiar red beam. It looked like a red cube, rotating steadily and floating above the ground. He pulled himself up to the platform below it, slowly approaching the strange object. It emitted a faint red glow that reflected off the grass beneath, and a weird pattern of red and black moved constantly across the surface of the cube. It was like nothing he’d ever seen, so of course he had to see what it could do.

Etho reached out, slowly, carefully, watching as his hand reflected the red glow of the cube…

...and as his fingers touched the otherworldly cube, it disappeared.

At the same time, a voice cried out, so unexpected that Etho threw his hands over his ears. It was soft but clearly audible, and it said one word:

“Hello?”

Then it was gone.

\-----

Etho carried on through the bizarre world he’d found himself in. He found out soon after the strange cube and its voice that he seemed to have a new skill - walljumping - which actually made him feel like this place had a purpose. Maybe it was here to teach him parkour? That didn’t explain why he had been dumped here with no explanation, but it was _something_. That voice stuck in his mind though, and even though he’d tried to grab every single cube he’d seen along his journey so far (they often took him far from his intended path, but he didn’t mind too much) he’d never heard that voice again. It almost saddened him. It was welcome company in a world where he seemed to be alone, and now it was gone.

After what seemed like hours of jumping between platforms and pressing buttons, collecting cubes here and there, there was finally something different. After a particularly difficult button to hit that required Etho to dive head-first into a tight gap, the next button was on top of a tall, thin pillar (he guessed it was only just big enough to hold the button itself). However, as he gazed up at the pillar, he noticed… the familiar beam was _yellow_. It stood out against the night sky, turning the stars behind it a faded yellowish-green colour. With a fervor he hadn’t felt since he first stood up in this world, Etho scrambled to scale the pillar, using the other thin pillars that surrounded it to reach the yellow beam. From the second to last pillar, he could see that the button was yellow too, and he wondered if this was it. Would this be the final button?  
As it turned out, he was right.

Etho stepped onto the yellow button, and immediately he was thrown into the air like a leaf on the wind. He went higher and higher, but somehow he felt more peaceful than he had this entire time, staring down at the heart-shaped island he was leaving behind.

Finally, he heard the voice again. Two words were whispered into his mind, two words that made him feel at peace.

“Thank you.”

And then he was gone.

\-----

< **Etho has joined the world** >

Etho woke up on soft, warm sand, the sound of waves surrounding him. Behind him he heard the sound of someone gasping for air, and as the ninja pulled air into his own lungs he felt revitalised.

Home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact! The jump across the pipes Etho does is a real speedrun trick :D


End file.
